Recognizing that education was her calling, she taught in rural and urban high schools and colleges in her home state, supporting herself while continuing her own studies.
She was nominated parliamentarian, guiding the society procedurally for its first four years, and she eventually held a number of other positions, including first vice-president (1933).
Ruby Terrill continued to contribute her time, energy, and ideas to Delta Kappa Gamma long after her retirement from the university, and she left a gift to the society in her will.
She managed to teach and administer at the university, remain involved in myriad organizations, oversee the home and family, and take care of a number of duties for her husband's research, while he resumed collecting, lecturing, and meeting with publishers and funders.
The Lomaxes moved to the "House in the Woods" outside Dallas as their permanent residence, then drove away in her Plymouth on a scouting tour of the Southern states.
John Lomax's May 12, 1939 letter to Music Division chief Harold Spivacke highlights his wife's volunteer contributions to the Library's Archive of American Folk Song: "In nearly every instance Miss Terrill is including typed copies of the words contained on each record; also the slang of the song and the singers.
While her husband possessed the contacts, the title of Honorary Consultant and Curator of the Archive of American Folk Song, and the expert knowledge of the material he was seeking and collecting, Ruby Lomax possessed the organizational and archival skills of a longtime administrator and instructor, the wide-eyed wonder of a lifelong learner uncovering a whole new world of studies, and the social skills of a parliamentarian who was a key player on many teams.
Her legacy lives on in the Delta Kappa Gamma Society International, and other progressive organizations, to which she contributed, as well as in the Library of Congress, where reside the thousands of songs and stories that she collected and documented alongside her eminent husband.